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Improved Memory Security For Radeon DRM

Phoronix: Improved Memory Security For Radeon DRM

Yesterday the TTM memory manager and Radeon kernel mode-setting code entered the mainline Linux kernel Git tree, which means it will be part of the next Linux 2.6.31 kernel release. In the 2.6.31 series this new Radeon driver will be marked as "staging" as there is still some work left to be accomplished and further testing needs to be done with this driver and different Radeon graphics cards...

any info when additional power management support or improvements will be added to the xf86-video-ati or radeonhd driver ?

currently my box is getting warmer several degrees (centigrade) which also implies higher power consumption compared to fglrx/catalyst, for several people there's also the problem of fast spinning fans which is unacceptable

I know that 3D surely still takes a while for R600 or R700 but at least proper power management should be there

it's very subjective which parts should be developed earlier: for me it's definitely not KMS

any info when additional power management support or improvements will be added to the xf86-video-ati or radeonhd driver

Here's the problem - additional power management support really needs to go in the kernel on top of KMS. The next real step in power management is dynamic adjustment of clocks and voltage, and that requires hooks into both modesetting and 2D/3D acceleration. The only place all that information comes together is in the kernel with KMS running, so that's where the power management code needs to go.

It is certainly possible to build additional protocols to pass modesetting info from a userspace driver down to the kernel, but since KMS is already in progress none of the devs thing it's worth implementing a throw-away solution in userspace.

Originally Posted by kernelOfTruth

currently my box is getting warmer several degrees (centigrade) which also implies higher power consumption compared to fglrx/catalyst, for several people there's also the problem of fast spinning fans which is unacceptable

Actually I wonder where we are going in graphics. It is easy to think of things to use CPU power for, but what happens when we have GPU's that can do Lord of the Rings type of graphics real time?

Physics doesn't scale like graphics does. If you do physics that effect game play, you have to simulate it all the time. E.g. it would be bad if you knocked some boxes over, and they land in one way if you look at then, and if you turn around, while they fall, they land in a different way

So I think we will get GPU's that can do very close LotR movie quality in the next generation of GPU's.

I say "Lord of the Rings movie quality is enough for anyone", so let's just burn some percentages off on security